It’s scary to think that U2 is now in their fifties. Bono is 53. What happened to the Irish lads in their 20s who became only the third band at the time to grace the cover of Time magazine? I’ve been following them since I was 14. So if Bono is 53, that makes me … in any event, there are certain songs I’ve resigned myself to not hearing live again—or in the same way as I did in the early ’90s, such as “Bad.” Remember how Bono sounded on the Wide Awake in America version of that song? Now “I’m wide awake” is sung in falsetto. (And there were apparently other songs Bono hated doing live such as “Red Hill Mining Town,” even though the live versions are always three notes lower than in the studio.) All that said, the band appeared on the first episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and did this acoustic version of “Ordinary Love.” Not bad for 53.
For more on the band as it strives to complete its next album, check out the profile in the Hollywood Reporter. One great observation by reporter Hal Espen:
One of pop music’s great business stories is how U2 never let itself get screwed by the record industry, retained ownership of its publishing and master tapes, mounted one technologically unprecedented tour spectacular after another, built a global fan base and now negotiates with the biggest companies in entertainment and technology as a peer, not a supplicant.
The band is estimated to have a net worth of $852 million.